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BALMES, Avraham ben Me'ir de (1440-1523). Sefer Di

Venice: Daniel Bomberg, 1523. 4to (208 x 145 mm). 157 ff. non. num. 19th-century half red morocco, gilt title to spine, edges speckled green. Condition: title restored in two places, light foxing and dampstaining, some browning. Provenance: Dr. J. Perles Rabbiner (stamp to title); owner's inscription to title; pagination, in Hebrew, to some leaves; occasional underlining. First edition-comprising only the Hebrew text-of this grammatica edited by the physician and Italian translator Abraham de Balmes, approaching the construction of the Hebrew language from a philosophical perspective and refuting the position of the eminent grammatician David Qimhi. De Balmes was the first to consider syntax (harkabah) as a distinct grammatical form. The printer, Bomberg, was a friend and perhaps apprentice of De Balmes, the first to use Hebrew characters in printing at Venice. The Sefer DikDuk, better known as the Miqneh Avram ("Abraham's Possession"), was issued in two different printings, one monolingual, for the Hebrew market, and one bilingual, in Latin and Hebrew, for Christian scholars. Avraham de Balmes of Lecce occupied the chair of medicine at the University of Padova, where he translated natural science and philosophy texts from Hebrew to Latin. He was personal medic to cardinal Domenico Grimani, to whom he dedicated his translation of an Arabic astronomical text and the Epistolae Expeditionis by Arabic philosopher Ibn Baga. Adams A-40; D. Amram, The Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy, pp.169-72.

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